Graduation

This brief trip home culminates and continues (can both of those happen at the same time and be correct?) a vision God gave our youngest daughter while she served in Helene with us for two years. Susanna came to Helene with her sisters and parents in 2004 having just finished her sophomore year in high school. Her routine before she arrived in Honduras included homeschooling, working at a local pharmacy and constant involvement with her friends. Like most teenagers, she had acquired her driver's license which greatly aided our schedule as she played on not one, but two basketball teams. Her life was full already, living four miles from the Atlantic Ocean, babysitting, and actively embracing relationships of all ages. After the second week of living on an island accessible only by an international flight, followed by an hour in a van and then a 35 minute boat ride, it was understandable to say she was in another world.
For the first two weeks, she isolated herself in front of her computer to constantly IM her friends (before Facebook). Her dad and I came to her and grounded her computer use. "Back home is not your focus. It's time to get out and begin your ministry." And she did just that...her ministry. On our staff each person has responsibilities that are specific to them. There are not just jobs to be done. It is something that represents who you are. Since Susanna had learned some sign language, she was a terrific help to her mom who was the kindergarten teacher. One of the little girls in the class was deaf from a childhood fever. Susanna taught her some signs and they had great fun with each other. A year later a youth mission team visited our site. Included in the group was a high school teacher of the deaf and 3 deaf high school students. Susanna and our deaf kindergartener were almost constant companions of the four people visiting who used signs to communicate everything. For Susanna it was heaven to interact and learn more about ministry to the deaf from the teacher. To Kiera it was heaven to see other people who relied on signing in real life. She had never been around so many people who "talked" this way. In the weeks to come, Susanna would discover that God had placed her in Helene as a teenager to show her His plan for her life and ministry.
On Sunday Susanna graduated magna cum laude with a degree in deaf education from Barton College. Four days later, she attended orientation for the master's program at the University of Southern Mississippi with a full scholarship. She will be doing her coursework for a year while working at the Magnolia School for the Deaf and then will intern in Memphis, Tennessee at a school for the deaf. She is especially interested in intervention, working with parents whose child has just been disgnosed with deafness. Working with parents who are dealing for the first time with learning how to communicate with their deaf baby is intervention. We can only look to the Lord and praise Him for His hand in her life. It is exciting to see where He will lead her next.